Chapter 23
Lucian
Mobilizing the pack took too fucking long.
I get why they don’t want to go back to our old realm. Even I don’t want to fight the hellhounds who stayed, and I sure as hell don’t want to get carted back to Obsidian City, but we can’t abandon our pack.
I won’t abandon Cara.
I should have gone on my own the moment I discovered Cara was taken. My mother and Maurice could have rallied the pack while I got a head start.
Now it might be too late.
My one hope is that they’re on foot and slow moving with their captives. It’s the only edge we might have to catch up with them. We drove for as long as we could, then parked our vehicles on the side of the road before shifting and racing toward the mountain we had escaped from all those years ago.
It’s weird being back here, and I can sense the same emotions reverberating from my pack. When we first crossed into this realm, we camped out at a nearby stream for only four hours, hoping more hellhounds would join us. They never did.
We explored a bit after that, trying to find a spot that would be safe for us to call home, but we struggled with how far away to go.
If we stayed too close and the demon king sent an envoy to bring us back, we’d only make it easy for them, but if we moved too far away, then any of our hound brethren that escaped as we did would be on their own.
Still, none of us ever thought we’d be looking into the mouth of this particular cave again. We had too many years of peace and became too comfortable. Too complacent. We believed the demon king had forgotten about us, and now we’re paying the price.
I leap over a small puddle inside the cave and immediately scent my mate. It’s too weak and mixed with others, like Cooper, Henry, and too many unfamiliar fucking hellhounds, so I can’t break out her emotions. At least I don’t sense any pain.
Good. They haven’t harmed her.
Maybe we aren’t too late.
My breath comes out ragged as we approach the barrier. It shimmers in the soft glow of the torchlight, but I look beyond it.
There’s no one.
Nothing but an empty cave.
It seems we must trek farther into this realm than we’d hoped to.
Without another thought, I step through the barrier.
My skin tingles as the air in this realm hugs me like a long-lost friend.
It takes gargantuan effort to keep my fire from surfacing, but the flames stay buried.
My heart aches for the place that was once my home but is now nothing but a distant memory.
Yet even just being here for a few moments has memories flooding of the past. Good ones. Then bad.
Shaking off the melancholy, I turn to find the members of my pack waiting. I can’t say for sure, but I suspect they just went through a similar strange occurrence.
Lifting my head, I meet their gazes and mentally push my words to them. We will save our pack. We will save my mate. And we will escape the wretched demon king once again. I stomp my paw down, wishing I could crumble the Obsidian City to the ground, but that’s not what happens.
Instead, my pack becomes invigorated. They hate what this place now means to them as much as I do, but here is not our end. It’s not Cara’s end, either.
I won’t let it be.
We’re silent as we slink through the realm, following the trail of familiar scents and trying to remain unseen until we know what it is we’re up against. We need to get them before they reach the center of Obsidian City, or else rescuing them will become much more difficult.
A sound echoes off the cavernous walls that has dread settling in my gut.
“Don’t touch me!”
Hearing my mate’s words nearly tears me apart. Cara!
Without a second thought, I race toward the sound.
Harry always talked about how powerful the mate bonds were, and now that I’m here, I finally understand what he means.
My hound snarls, mouth frothing with the need to kill and maim and harm anyone who dares to cause her anguish.
I think of nothing but her and the overriding need to get to her.
My claws clack against the rock floor as I round the corner, stepping off the rock and stone landscape of the cave and onto grass, but the soft earth doesn’t offer any comfort. Not with what I find in front of me.
Around Cara there are far too many hellhounds, but thankfully I only spot one demon.
Coop, in his flameless hound form, stands beside my mate, his head low as he snarls at the demon reaching toward the woman who’s already more a part of me than I realized.
It takes every ounce of control I have not to race toward her.
Mate.
Mate.
MATE.
My hound whines at the distance between us, but it’s too risky to show our hand when the demon is so close. If he gets even a whiff of what she means to us, he’ll hurt her just to fuck with us.
Her gaze flashes to me, and I swear a look of recognition passes over her features, but I can’t focus on that. Not when the demon, likely sent as an emissary by his king, turns at the sound of our approach.
“So nice of you to join us,” he says, his voice rough and grating. “The king will be pleased that we’ve rounded up so many deserters. And this gift—a partial nephilim. Oh, I suspect he will make great use of you.”
One of the hellhounds I don’t recognize opens its mouth, and to my utter disbelief, it’s not a growl that escapes. At least, not fully. He speaks words. Recognizable words, though they come out accented and strange.
“There aren’t enough cuffs for all of them.” He licks his maw. “Surely the king will allow us to take care of a few now?”
His words give me pause, but I can’t shake the realization that he’s talking in hound form. How is he doing that? It’s not possible. My own pack share similar thoughts, all wondering what new magic has occurred to make this happen, and what other new dangers might lie ahead of us.
The demon looks around at our group, likely counting his foes and assessing the risks. From the corner of my eye, I catch Coop taking advantage of the demon’s distraction by using his large head to push Cara farther behind him. He’s protecting her.
Does he know what she is to me? I consider telling him, but I don’t get the chance.
The demon nods to his hellhound comrade. “Though at least try to save a few for his majesty. You know how much he’s looking forward to their return home.”
The unfamiliar hounds don’t waste a second, but they don’t head toward the easy targets. They leave the vulnerable members of my pack, already weakened by the cuffs, and come for us first.
My hound takes over. The flames I’ve kept locked away burst from my body, and for the first time since finding out that Cara was taken, I let all my rage out.
My teeth tear into the flank of the asshole currently trying to rip my throat out.
He howls in pain as blood fills my mouth, but that only makes us bite down harder.
This rabid frenzy takes over until I don’t feel the man parts of me anymore. All I am is a hound. Beast. Yet I know I haven’t lost myself completely because I still feel Cara’s presence. She’s like the sun, shining amidst the utter darkness and lighting the way home.
To her.
With a savage bite, I end the hound in front of me and turn to find my next victim. The rest of my pack are fighting for their lives against the hounds still working for the demon king. All except for my best friend, who stands guard to my mate.
A loud yelp has me whipping my head around to find Harry. He’s still cuffed, but that hasn’t stopped him from throwing himself headfirst into battle. Then, I finally notice what caused the sound.
Blood coats his fur from an open gash on his chest, and the hound who spoke to the demon earlier stalks toward him, ready to kill.